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Re: Mana Symbols in Vector

PostPosted: 22 Mar 2012, 05:44
by Goblin Hero
skibulk wrote:I have hand-drawn the old style white mana symbol to add to the collection.
TY!
skibulk wrote:Also just a jpg of more tap symbols
Plan to trace them too?

Re: Mana Symbols in Vector

PostPosted: 22 Mar 2012, 11:27
by skibulk
Attached is an eps with a legacy plains symbol, two legacy tap symbols, a Y symbol, a Z symbol, and another snow symbol.

Image

Re: Mana Symbols in Vector

PostPosted: 23 Mar 2012, 06:48
by Goblin Hero
skibulk wrote:Attached is an eps with a legacy plains symbol, two legacy tap symbols, a Y symbol, a Z symbol, and another snow symbol.
Updated the first post. Replaced S, Y and Z with your (better) versions, added tap and old W symbols.

Re: Mana Symbols in Vector

PostPosted: 31 Oct 2012, 15:45
by deurk
Does anyone have SVG version of the five base mana symbols without the circle?

Re: Mana Symbols in Vector

PostPosted: 30 Jan 2013, 19:32
by skibulk
While I have already released the classic white mana symbol, I just noticed that every other symbol also changed. Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited contain the variants. Revised contains some but not others. Can somebody post 1200dpi scans of each colored symbol from these sets so that I can render them? Scans from Unlimited Edition Lands are preferred, because the symbol in the text box was printer larger than usual.

Edit:
Does anybody have the orignial Alpha/Beta rules book? A scan of the "Mana Chart" page seems to be the perfect solution. Since I'm doing all the vector work on these, maybe somebody would be willing to purchase the booklet? I found one for $8 plus shipping.

Re: Mana Symbols in Vector

PostPosted: 31 Jan 2013, 14:21
by skibulk
Please don't skip over my previous post.

Here's official mana symbols which I extracted from documents published by WoTC. I've also included variants with 50% circle-opacity. These textbox-only symbols were used in 8E, MR, DS, and FD.

Also the Portal Power and Toughness symbols. Use the white-backed symbols for creatures' P/T indication. For textbox use, apply the see-through symbols.

Lastly, I've included an official Planechase symbol.

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Re: Mana Symbols in Vector

PostPosted: 03 Feb 2013, 06:50
by Nyth
After you've done those lovely 50% opacity symbols, you're going to hate me for saying this, but that colouring was an issue with getting the printing correct when they moved to the Modern frames. Mirrodin suffered horribly in that the colours were barely visible in the text boxes while 8th Edition fared a bit better but ended up mildly washed out.

I'm not sure these are strictly important or required since a correct reprint of a Silver Myr from Mirrodin would have the same text box symbol as the Silver Myr from Scars of Mirrodin. It really depends on how specific people want to get with using the exact symbol for that time period.

Also, do you have the Planechase symbols in PNG? I don't have Illustrator or a similar editor on this machine and am curious as to which symbols you've made. I'm assuming it is the Planeswalker symbol (used on the planar die) and the Chaoes symbol (used on the plane cards themselves).

Re: Mana Symbols in Vector

PostPosted: 03 Feb 2013, 07:59
by Marek14
I think that in Mirrodin they experimented with not using colors in text boxes. It was a failed experiment and they stopped doing that after the block.

Re: Mana Symbols in Vector

PostPosted: 03 Feb 2013, 08:21
by Nyth
Found the discussion on Community and the May 20th 2003 Ask Wizards... They were trying to save money. The issue was the opposite of what I thought. They were trying to avoid coloured symbols since they were error prone.

It affected 8th Edition and all of Mirrodin Block.

https://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/askwizards/0503

http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/19022694/mirrodin_color?post_id=324616282#324616282

Re: Mana Symbols in Vector

PostPosted: 03 Feb 2013, 13:52
by skibulk
As Wizards said, "...since the text box itself is colored, it tricks your eye into seeing the symbol as colored too." I guess I fell for that. Looking really closely at the Bringers, I swore they were different colors? Okay so now some more questions. Are these with 50% opacity black circles? Less? Are the numbered circles also see-through? Are the circles on the 5 core mana symbols all exactly the same or are they blackend relative to their original colors?

Does the "fork" symbol of the planar die appear in the textbox of any card?

Re: Mana Symbols in Vector

PostPosted: 04 Feb 2013, 07:36
by Nyth
The easiest way to figure this out is to double check the cards. If you look at the 8th edition ETB uncommon lands, it is most obvious there. The symbols are black/greyscale. Bringer of the Blue Dawn shows all 5 symbols (largest symbols of all the Bringers) and they're all in black/greyscale. So the circle is a black circle at some opacity level. I would just experiment to see what comes out looking correct since I'm not sure what the % is for the grey. They all are the same.

As for the Planeswalker "fork" symbol, it only ever appears on the planar die.

First announced: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/208 - this article also has really high resolution PNGs if you click on either of the two images.
Planechase: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/51 - the smaller cleaner dice symbol was shown off on this page.
Believe it or not, a different Planeswalker symbol was made to be used for Planeswalkers when they were slated to be printed in Futuresight future frames. Check out the Ask Wizards for August 5th, 2008 for the symbol - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/askwizards/0808 and https://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/arcana/1341 (for the other symbols)

I know I am a wealth of useless information such as this, but I hope this helps.

Re: Mana Symbols in Vector

PostPosted: 04 Feb 2013, 21:52
by skibulk
Hows this look? 25% opacity. Included the regular symbols again because I noticed my last batch was cut off a little bit.

It seems that numbered mana and the tap symbol needs the same treatment.

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Re: Mana Symbols in Vector

PostPosted: 05 Feb 2013, 08:10
by Nyth
You're right about the numbers and tap symbol. They also ended up being greyed out in those 4 sets.

Re: Mana Symbols in Vector

PostPosted: 24 Jun 2013, 02:59
by BaconCatBug
Just wanna say that this is amazing work skibulk. <3 You are a massive help to everyone!

Re: Mana Symbols in Vector

PostPosted: 11 Aug 2013, 05:06
by gurok
This is really excellent work. I'm combining some of these with the symbols found in the freely available Magic symbol fonts (MTG2011, Magic Symbols 2012 Z) to make a more complete font. Does anyone know where I might find vector versions of the following?

    The Odyssey era tombstone symbol
    The guild symbols
    The remaining card type symbols (other than planeswalker)
    The Inquest purple mana symbol (I've tried recreating it, but it's so-so)
I'm most after the tombstone symbol, but I'd appreciate any pointers to other material. The Inquest purple mana symbol is basically impossible to find, but I think it's just a + that's been twirled a bit.

A couple of notes:

The numbers in the numeric mana costs do not seem heavy enough to me. I've used the existing numbers in the MTG 2011 font in preference to the ones found in the SVG file.

The million symbol seems out of proportion to me. The number is not condensed as it appears on the card. I could be missing something here, though. I am not saying I could do any better, but Goblin Hero did mention he was striving for accuracy.

--

Anyway, thought I'd share what I have so far. It comes with an HTML file that shows you how to combine the glyphs to create mana symbols.